The purpose of this project is to bring together European researchers already established in both the history of technology generally, and patent history more specifically, in order to launch a systematic and cumulative analytical effort at an international level.
The network is designed as a direct contribution to an historical understanding of the social, skill, and industrial characteristics of inventors and innovators; the agencies and institutions – such as Patent Offices, patent agents and lawyers - who played a major role in the translation of technological novelty into the language of the law, and in codifying the rules of ‘transferability’ of technological change; and the extent and importance of patents as channels of technology transfer between nations. The collaborative character of the project, then, is based on the forging of historical links between individual biographies, collective biographies and institutional imperatives.